JaegerCon Bingo
by The Batchild
Summary: This is a collection of the moments I wrote for JaegerCon 2013 Bingo over on Tumblr (you can find the rest over there on my page). They are posted in the order in which they appeared on the bingo card. They are moments of love, friendship, and sadness, moments that bring people closer and expose their secrets. Raleigh/OFC, other familiar and friendship pairings.
1. Alcohol

There were no lights on the conn-pod; Stalker Chaos stood quiet and waiting to be disassembled.

Elissa had volunteered him for what was about to happen, volunteered him to donate parts to bring Gipsy Danger back to life, and it was better than having him rot in Oblivion Bay or having him melted down to help build the God damn Wall of Life, but it still hurt. God, did it hurt. Stalker was part of her and she wasn't ready to say goodbye. But she would never be ready to say goodbye.

She sat in the dark conn-pod, back braced against the curve of the recess beneath the drive harnesses, or what was left of them. Lights filtered in from the repair bay, getting in through the hole in Stalker's head and illuminating the dark and twisted remains of Jared's harness and hers, still mostly intact even after the explosion. Elissa leaned her head back and closed her eyes, bringing the bottle of vodka to her lips and taking another long pull, the alcohol burning its way down her throat, bringing more tears to her eyes.

It still didn't make any sense to her, how she had survived and Jared hadn't. The experts who had examined the jaeger afterwards had given her theory after theory, but they didn't matter. She'd lost her finance, her co-pilot, her jaeger, and she was left to deal with that pain.

She swallowed another mouthful of vodka and set the bottle on the floor beside her. Elissa lifted her feet from where they had been sitting, ankles crossed, on the centre support for the lower part of the drive rig, and bent her knees, feet dangling into the open space housing the massive pistons that would, eventually, move the jaeger's feet. She peered down into the space as she had many times before, and imagined she was seeing Stalker lit up from the inside again, seeing the power flowing from his reactors to his arms and legs—she imagined she could hear the noises of his multitude of engines powering up, feel his heartbeat, as it were.

With a sigh loud enough to echo around the metal conn-pod, Elissa settled back against the wall, snatching up the vodka and pressing the bottle to her lips.

Her head was buzzing and she knew she should stop drinking. There was work to be done, a jaeger to be rebuilt, and it started in the morning.

Not for the first time, she wondered who they would get to pilot the old girl. With Yancy dead and Raleigh vanished, they would have to find someone new, and that didn't sit right with Elissa. But there was nothing she could do about it.

"Elissa, are you in here?"

She raised the hand holding the bottle of vodka so she didn't have to say yes.

Tendo appeared beside her, legs hanging free in the space as well. He held out his hand for the bottle and she gave it to him, watched him take a swig. "It's getting late."

She narrowed her eyes at Tendo, indignant. "What are you, my mom?"

He shook his head and put a hand on her knee, squeezing slightly. "I knew you wouldn't take this well, Pixie. I was just checking up on you."

Elissa sighed again and leaned her head on Tendo's shoulder, her friend wrapping an arm around her shoulders in a half-hug. "Everything has just sort of gone to shit and having Stalker dismantled… it's just sort of the last straw. I mean, I know he's rebuilding Gipsy and that's great, but…" She made an exasperated noise and Tendo laughed. "The Wall of Life is a stupid idea and the PPDC is going to regret cutting funding to this program."

"I know."

After a few more seconds, Elissa got to her feet and climbed rather clumsily out of the recess, snagging the bottle of Vodka from Tendo as he climbed out as well. She moved in front of Jared's harness. "Goodbye," she whispered, pouring some of the booze on the floor before taking another swig. She handed the bottle back to Tendo when he extended his hand and the pair of them left the conn-pod in silence, Elissa only bumping her shoulder against his and asking, "Do you know who Gipsy's new pilots are going to be?" when they were well clear of Stalker Chaos.

"No ma'am."

"You're lying."

"Yes ma'am."


	2. The Breach

The LOCCENT was filled with raised voices and bitter words and sharp glares, just like it always was when they began to discuss the plan, the final assault on the Breach, the Jaeger Program's last hurrah.

Elissa was tired of the arguing. She'd said her bit. Told them the jaegers would need some sort of reinforcement if they would going to survive the crushing pressures of the water at the depths of the Breach. Told them the bladed weapons would have to be in working order, because it was unlikely anything else would function down there.

That was what she was here for. To help Tendo provide the details about the jaegers the bickering scientists would need—or at least, that Dr. Gottlieb would need. Newt's brand of research didn't involve the jaegers as much as it did his wanting to get to know the kaiju and using that information against them.

Elissa sighed and got out of her chair, moving to stand in front of the massive holographic screen displaying the sensor readouts from around the Breach. Any images they had from the readouts were false colour imagines, like all those glorious shots of space, but Elissa liked to image the colours were pretty close. The arcing blue electricity or lightning or whatever that shot out whenever a kaiju broke through was a particular favourite of hers, as was the warm golden light just before the Breach cracked open, spilling fire and monsters across the space between universes.

It was odd, finding beauty in something that's sole purpose was to deliver the tools of utter destruction.

"_Movement in the Breach."_

The display sprang to life before Elissa and her brain automatically kicked into gear, gathering all relevant information and funneling it out her mouth. "Thirty-six metre spike in dilation registered," she said, raising her voice just a bit. The kaiju alert had a way of bringing silence to an argument. "Category III, looks like."

"Where's it headed?" Tendo asked as he wheeled over to his displays and brought them to life.

"Not sure yet…"

"Australia! Elissa, get the Sydney Shatterdome—see if the Hansens are still around. They just decommissioned Striker Eureka."

Elissa dropped in front of the nearest computer and connected to the Sydney 'Dome, her eyes never leaving the readouts of the Breach as she waited for the line to connect.


	3. Scars

The knock came at Raleigh's door around three am, which meant it was either something really bad or really important. He groaned and pushed himself up to a sitting position, his legs draped over the edge of his bed. Raleigh hadn't been asleep, but he'd been close, as close as he ever got. He rubbed his face as the knock came again and got to his feet, padding barefoot across the room to look through the peephole.

Elissa stood there, in the leggings she wore beneath her coveralls and a baggy and worn PPDC t-shirt. There was a look on her face that said something was up. Raleigh opened the door and leaned against it.

"What's up EJ?"

"Can I come in?"

He looked at her, saw the red around her eyes and knew she'd been crying. Elissa was not a girl who cried easily. "Yeah, of course." He stepped out of the way to let her in and shut the door behind her. Raleigh watched her sort of wander through the empty space in his room before finally dropping onto the edge of his bed. "What's wrong?"

When she looked up at Raleigh a few seconds later, there were fresh tears in her eyes. "I had a nightmare," she sniffed. "About Jared, about the explosion. Reliving it."

Raleigh sighed and settled on the bed beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her to him. He knew what that was like, reliving the loss of your co-pilot, of someone you loved. He knew it felt real, knew the memories were that much more potent because of the remnants of the drift. He also knew that those dreams could sometimes have other side effects.

"Are your scars hurting?" he asked, voice quiet.

Elissa nodded against Raleigh's shoulder. "I didn't want to bother you with this, Rals. I know you and Jared never really got along—"

"It's fine, EJ. It's not like there's anyone else around who would understand." He tapped her left shoulder gently. "Come on, let me see."

Elissa wiped her cheeks and lifted the side of her shirt, holding it place over her breasts with one hand. Raleigh looked down at the scars covering her side and lower back, circuitry suit burns the most prominent over fainter burn and laceration scars from the explosion. The lines from her suit were bright red, aggravated by tossing and turning and the remembered biochemical response, or at least, that was the theory. A lot of the shit that happened to jaeger pilots because of the drift still wasn't really understood, not in great depth. Raleigh ran his fingers lightly over the scars. Elissa winced.

"They're red and a little swollen. How much do they hurt when I touch them?"

"Just small pinches, a little pressure. It's been worse, but this won't go away."

Raleigh touched the scars again before he tugged her shirt back into place. "Are they all hurting?" he asked.

Elissa shook her head, wiped her eyes again and shoved some of her red hair back from her face. "Just the ones from the explosion: side, back, stomach, leg. The ones on my right arm are fine."

Raleigh got to his feet and pulled on a t-shirt, shoved his feet into his boots, didn't bother lacing them up. "Stay here. I'm going to go get some ice. It'll help."

Elissa nodded and pulled her right leg up underneath her. Raleigh looked at her a moment longer before he moved out in the hall, headed for the infirmary, the muscles in his jaw flexing as he pressed his teeth together. It hurt to see Elissa going through this, though if she actually managed sleep she would be better off than him—his own experiences with the nightmares and memories wand what they did to him were responsible for his insomnia. He knew how to help relieve the pain, but he didn't know how to keep it from happening again. He picked up the pace and made it to the infirmary, where he retrieved an ice pack before heading back to his room.

When Raleigh returned, he found Elissa in the same spot, her head in her hands and her shoulders moving up and down in time with slow, deep breaths. Raleigh sat down beside her again, kicking off his boots as he did so.

"EJ," he said, touching her side lightly again.

She pulled her shirt up again and lay on her right side. The scars will still bright and painful looking. Raleigh shifted so he was sitting cross-legged behind her and placed the ice pack on the thickest concentration of the scars at the top of her hip slowly, so she could adjust to the temperature change. She wasn't crying anymore, but there was still a hollow, haunted look in her eye, even as she sucked in a sharp breath from the cold.

"How does this help?" she asked.

"It numbs the pain, lowers the swelling." Raleigh stretched out on his back behind Elissa, his shoulder pressed against her back. "Mostly I find the cold takes your mind off of whatever brought it on."

Elissa snorted a laugh and rolled onto her back, holding the ice pack in place as she moved. "Really? It takes your mind off it? You were in Alaska when it happened. It's fucking cold up there, man."

Raleigh gave a small laugh and tucked one arm up under his head, shifting his torso away from where Elissa's ice pack made contact. "Yeah, I was."

Elissa closed her eyes and sighed. "That was insensitive—"

"A little bit, but it's all right. We were in Alaska and it was really fucking cold."

Elissa rolled her head to one side so she could look at Raleigh, and she was smiling, laughter working its way back into her eyes. For a moment, they just looked at each other, falling into a comfortable silence, something they hadn't shared since their one drift together, almost ten years before. Raleigh moved his arm around Elissa's shoulders and rolled her to him, the icepack falling forgotten to the bed between them. She lifted one hand to his chest, the other pinned beneath her, and hooked her fingers around the collar of his t-shirt.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there when Stalker went down," Raleigh said. It felt good to finally get it off his chest, it had been eating at him for a long time. "You were there for me when Yancy died, but I couldn't get my shit together to be there for you."

Her eyes narrowed when she looked down at him and then she pushed herself up and kissed him, quick on the mouth. "Oh shut up Princess. Like we needed another set of scars to share. We've got enough of those." She leaned down and kissed him again, for a little longer this time. "And this ice isn't doing shit."

Raleigh smiled at her from less than an inch away. "You've got to keep the ice on the scars for it to do anything, idiot," he quipped.

Elissa rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "Oh, is that how it works?" She kissed him again, deeper. He reached up and slid the fingers of one hand into her hair. "Or I could just keep kissing you and see if that helps."

"You could do that—it's certainly helping me."

She laughed as she kissed him that time, punching him playfully in the side and capturing his laughter with her mouth.


	4. Jaeger Legends

_Striker Eureka_

Striker Eureka was the pride of the PPDC—strongest, fastest jaeger there was.

Although, since there were only four jaegers remaining, that wasn't saying much, but everyone knew she would be something special even if there had been other Mark V's built. She was the first and last Mark V, something of a treasure to the resistance in Hong Kong. Ten kills. A record. Two of the best pilots the Rangers had ever seen, even if one of them was an ass to nearly everyone.

The wide-spread opinion of Chuck Hansen had never kept anyone from admitting he was an amazing Ranger. He'd been born for the work, raised in a world of war. All he'd ever strived for was a spot in the conn-pod of a jaeger. It was all he'd ever wanted.

So, when Striker Eureka shifted in the middle of the night, knee bending ever so slightly before straightening again, no one was really surprised.

Sure, a few of the newbies were taken aback—the legends are real?—but the crew in Hong Kong was comprised nearly completely of veterans, technicians and engineers and scientists, hundreds of people, who had seen it before or were so comfortable with the stories they were truths regardless of no firsthand evidence. The crew that had travelled with Striker from Australia said nothing about the matter, as was expected. If Striker had moved before, no one was going to say anything about it.

It had been the left side that moved—Chuck's side. No one doubted Hercules's connection to the machine, but Striker Eureka was the elder Hansen's second command, and he hadn't fought for it like Chuck had. He hadn't needed it like Chuck had.

Striker Eureka was Chuck's jaeger; he'd named her. The techs argued Striker fought like Chuck, but the father and son team were so similar it was hard to direct the debate one way or the other. It didn't really matter—it was amazing to watch the machine move when fully powered and piloted, and even more so to watch it move in the relative silence of the Shatterdome when most were asleep, and all the techs knew whose thoughts and dreams Striker responded to.

* * *

_Gipsy Danger_

Elissa hadn't believed in the haunted jaeger stories until she'd seen one of the massive machines move without power, without pilots. Not until she'd seen it for herself.

It had been shortly after Gipsy Danger's first deployment, the Yamarashi fight. Elissa had just been a tech, not a pilot yet, and was elbow-deep in the exposed wiring of Gipsy's right shoulder, the joint severely damaged in the fight. The repair crew was minimal—it was 2:30am after all—and Elissa was by herself, strapped in and humming to herself as she worked at getting the joint back to some semblance of normalcy.

A shudder went through the wiring, a buzz like a faint electric shock. Elissa pulled back, blinking and wondering if she'd imagined it. She extricated herself from inside Gipsy's arm and climbed up to the top of her shoulder, looking around for what could have possible caused the reaction. It took the young tech a moment to notice Gipsy's fingers on her left hand moving, curling and uncurling one by one. A smile took over her features and she laughed out loud.

Left was Raleigh's hemisphere. Gipsy was responding to him, to whatever he was dreaming about.

Elissa watched the slow, steady movements until they stopped a moment later, wondering why it happened and why she'd never believed in the stories until that moment. It made perfect sense to her when she thought about—the connection between pilot and jaeger lasting beyond the termination of the drift, beyond the "off" switch. The drift was apparently unlike anything else, an unfathomable connection.

The next day, no one mentioned Gipsy moving in her bay at night. Elissa wanted to talk to someone about it, find out if anyone knew why or how it happened, if anyone had any stories. No one even acknowledged it had happened.

The next time she saw Gipsy Danger move was a year or so later, right before she graduated from the Academy, before she became a pilot in her own right. It was the left side again, elbow joint creaking as Gipsy's arm turned and lifted a few feet. Elissa had been sitting on the gantry, studying the silhouettes of the technicians against the flying sparks, waiting for sleep and wondering what it would be like to finally pilot a jaeger. She'd been close to thinking maybe the haunted jaeger thing was a myth after all and she'd imagined the whole thing with the fingers; her brain could come up with some crazy shit when she was tired.

She'd smiled then too, leaning back on her hands and gazing fondly at the Mark III.

She didn't even try and tell anyone what she'd seen. She understood then that seeing a jaeger respond to the dreams of one or both of its pilots was a private thing, a side effect of the drift no one had anticipated. Those who had seen it happen kept the memories to themselves.

The third time she saw Gipsy move, it was the right arm, and she was sitting beside Raleigh, the remains of a late-night snack spread between them on the floor of the catwalk. Raleigh had laughed, shocked to find the stories were true and Elissa had just smiled until he'd prodded her for all the information about the phenomenon she had.

* * *

_Stalker Chaos _

There wasn't much left of Stalker Chaos—the right arm and shoulder, part of the head, part of the torso and abdomen, the right thigh. The rest was gone, taken and used to repair and upgrade Gipsy Danger, or used in whatever way it could be. Billions of dollars in materials was not going to go to waste. The Mark IV was suspended in a repair bay at the height he would have stood when he was whole. It was done originally for ease of access when the jaeger had still stood at two hundred and fifty feet and he'd just never come down.

Stalker Chaos was sort of a fixture now, a monument for the techs, a good luck charm. He was not a weapon of war anymore.

But he had life in him yet. It didn't matter that he wasn't whole, that he hadn't moved without the help of helicopters in years. He was still connected to his pilot, to Elissa, and sometimes, when the redhead had actually managed to fall asleep, the jaeger would twitch and move, rattle the chains holding him up.

The first time it happened in Hong Kong, the noise was so loud the techs thought the machine was coming loose from its moorings, about to collapse to the ground. Everyone cleared the area, but the jaeger fell silent. The clanging of the chains settled to a soft whisper of metal against metal, Stalker's remaining hand twitching slightly as Elissa dreamed somewhere deeper in the Shatterdome. Technicians and engineers and anyone awake and nearby stopped to watch.

Jaegers moving in time with their dreaming pilots was rare enough, but a jaeger who had been out of commission for so long? No one had expected any connection to remain.

Elissa and Stalker had other ideas.

It happened rather frequently after the first incident, small nudges and twists, the rattling of chains becoming an expected thing in Stalker Chaos's bay. The more time his pilot spent with the remains of her jaeger the stronger the connection grew, it seemed.

It didn't make any sense, but then, not a lot about the drift did make sense. All any of the experts knew was there was a bond formed with the machine in the drift, a bond as strong as the one formed between the pilots. Man and machine. That was the whole point of the Jaeger Program. They knew how to create a drift, they knew some of the side effects, the long term effects—there was a lot they did know, but it was hard to study something you couldn't experience firsthand. So they speculated. They determined it must be of Elissa's refusal to let go of her memories of being in the drift, of the feel of Stalker in her head, of the personality she'd imbued into the jaeger; Elissa had been the alpha of Stalker's pilots, and the machine had fought like her, moved like her.

The night after the Breach was closed, Stalker moved so violently in response to Elissa's dreams or nightmare or thoughts, his arm came free of the chains, the noise thunderous and lasting. The techs wondered what it would be like if the machine was ever rebuilt, if the pilot ever fully drifted with him again, but after that night, Stalker Chaos fell dormant.

The crew stop and watch sometimes though, sure the jaeger will move again.


	5. Pre-Canon

Elissa was in the garage, elbow-deep in her latest robotic arm project, when she heard a loud thud coming from inside the house. She almost didn't respond to it, as into the complex tangle of wires as she was, but when she heard Margret scream a split second later, she pulled her arms free, dropped her tools and ran. She didn't pull quite far enough away however and gouged her arm on a piece of metal.

"Damn," she muttered, using one of the curses her dad called "mild," and didn't mind if she used. Margret screamed again and Elissa forgot about her arm, trailing blood into the house as she ran. "Marg, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

The thirteen year old found her tutor in the living room, staring wide-eyed at the television, books scattered on the floor at her feet where she'd dropped them. Taking in the terror on Margret's face, Elissa moved up silently beside the older woman and turned her attention to the TV screen, finally remembering to clamp a hand down on her bleeding arm.

At frist, Elissa didn't understand what she was seeing. It was San Francisco—that much she was sure of—but it was displayed through a shaking camera, high-pitched noises filling the speakers. There was something… a huge monster—there really was no other word for it—wading through the water, headed for the Golden Gate Bridge. It had to have been three hundred feet tall and weighed several thousand tons. The bridge, the camera shook with every lumbering step it took. Massive teeth and claws tore through the air, swatting fighter jets away as if they were flies, the noises it was making shuttering through the air; Elissa could see the cables of the bridge vibrating.

But what was the thing? Where had it come from? What did it want?

Elissa sunk to her knees on the carpet in front of the television. San Francisco was just about as far west from Ontario as you could get and yet, Elissa found her chest tight with fear, with horror at what was happening, with rage. Tears pressed at the backs of her eyes and she wanted to scream. Some of the shock-induced fog cleared in the wake of her anger and Elissa caught part of what the newscaster—or whoever, they weren't actually showing who belonged to the voice—was saying.

"_The city experienced a 7.1 earthquake several hours prior to the creature emerging from the ocean. There is no word on what it could be or where it came from, and it doesn't appear to be bothered by any of our weapons. Authorities are advising everyone to move inland and wait for further instructions."_

"Elissa? Margret?"

Elissa turned sharply at the sound of her father's voice and, driven by some baser fear she hadn't felt since she was a very young child, she pushed herself to her feet and ran to her dad, flinging her arms, blood and all around him.

"Elissa—what happened to your arm?"

"I cut it on some metal when I came in to see what was going on," she said, managing to keep her voice even, despite the emotion she could feel working its way up. She would not cry and scream in front of her dad. No she wouldn't. The creature roared, the noise thundering through the speakers and she whimpered. "Dad, I'm scared."

Chris Jayden crouched down so he could look his daughter in the eye. "Elissa, it's in San Francisco. It can't get you here."

"It's not that, it's… I don't know. I'm just scared."

He sighed and reached forward to tuck some of her hair behind her ear. "Let's get your arm patched up, all right?"

Elissa nodded and followed her father down the hall to the bathroom, noticing as they walked that they were both still wearing work clothes and both smeared with grease and oil. It made her smile. In the bathroom, Elissa sat on the closed toilet and her dad perched on the edge of the tub, once he had collected the necessary first aid supplies. He took her arm gently in his hands—the only visible skin that was clean—and began wiping away the blood.

"Has anyone said what it is yet?" she asked. Her father might have heard something at the military base, something they weren't telling the public—maybe a foolish hope, but she didn't care.

"I don't think anyone knows."

Elissa bit her lip to keep from whimpering when her father started applying antiseptic to the wound. "What's going to happen?"

Chris sighed. "I don't know Elissa. If we have to assist bring this thing down, they may move me to another base to help get the jets ready to go, and yes, you will be coming with me if that happens, but only if." He affixed a large bandage over the cut, made sure it was firmly in place. "Nothing is going to happen to us here."

Elissa hugged her dad and he stood up with her in his arms, her diminutive stature allowing him to pick her up. "I want to help though."

"I know baby girl, but there's nothing you could do. Not yet."

Elissa hugged her dad tighter with the use of the nickname. She felt better, less scared and panicky. Chris and her walked back out to the living room and Elissa dropped back onto the floor, her jaw set with a bizarre sense of determination as she watched the coverage of the attack in San Francisco. Chris left to go back to work shortly after and Elissa and Margret set to cleaning up the blood drops on the carpet before they dried. Aside from the cleaning, and from a quick break to shower and change, Elissa rarely left the spot in front of the television for the six days it took to bring the beast down.

If there were people dying and she couldn't do anything to help, she was sure as hell going to watch every second of it. She was not going to ignore it. She was going to commit all the anger and sadness and fear she felt to memory and then, if another one of those monsters came out of the ocean, she was going to do something to help.


	6. Dog Tags

"Aren't you supposed to be getting suited up?"

Elissa looked up and glared at Chuck where he stood in her doorway. The Australian pilot still looked exhausted and thin, one arm in a brace and several bandages visible under his clothes. She quickly shoved the box she'd been digging through behind her back. "Sorry if I need a minute before getting back inside the conn-pod," she snapped. "It's not like the last time I jockeyed went well."

Chuck returned the glare for a minute before sighing. He entered her room and settled into the chair at her desk, sinking into it. "Are those Jared's things?" he asked, as cautiously as he was probably capable of.

For a moment, Elissa considered yelling at Chuck, kicking him out of her room, but it wasn't as if he'd had an easy time of it. His last run in a jaeger had been during Operation Pitfall and he hadn't expected to come back, especially without Marshall Pentecost. He hadn't been the same since they'd pulled him out of the ocean. Elissa sighed and rubbed her eyes.

"Yeah. He had this box in his room with a note telling me to open it if anything happened to him." Elissa pulled the box back into her lap, started rifling through it. "It's mostly just letters he wrote me, pictures of us, little things… I think he thought it would help me move on or some other shit like that."

"Did it?"

"Actually not really," she said with a small smile. "The only thing that ever helped was having his dog tags with me." Elissa hooked a thumb under the chains around her neck and pulled them out from under her tank top. There were three: one holding her own dog tags, one with a piece of metal from Stalker Chaos's original body, and the last with another set of dog tags and a diamond ring.

Chuck peered at the tags dangling from the chains, one corner of his mouth quirking up in a small grin. "I never would have thought you were a diamond kind of girl."

"I'm not." Elissa slipped her necklaces back under her tank top and set the box on the bed behind her before getting to her feet. "There is more than one reason why Jared and I wouldn't have worked as a couple."

Chuck stood up as well, towering above Elissa. "I guess so. Man spent how many hours inside your head and it barely sounds like he knew you."

"Oh he did," Elissa replied, pulling on a sweater and zipping it up. "But, whether he was aware of it or not, he kept trying to change who I was, or at least, change the things he didn't like."

"I'm assuming Raleigh had something to do with that."

Elissa pursed her lips at him and glared again.

Chuck switched direction. "Why did you say yes then?"

Elissa tossed a look at Chuck over her shoulder as they stepped out into the hallway, the injured pilot pulling the door closed behind them. "Something tells me you don't really want me to go into the complexities of my relationships, Chuck, so what do you want?"

He shrugged and they started walking down the hall towards the elevator. "Guess I just wanted to see how someone else who was forced out was handling getting back in the conn-pod."

Inside the elevator, Elissa crossed her arms and smiled bitterly at the thoughts in her head, at what she was about to say. "I'm excited to get back in a jaeger, even if it's only for a fucking demo run for the masses of adoring public or whatever, but the idea of getting in that harness, of connecting to someone other than Jared, even if it is Mako… it hurts. I can't stop thinking about that fight in Vancouver, about that explosion, about how lost I felt afterwards. There's a hole in here," she said, tapping her forehead, "shaped like Jared and it'll never go away."

"I guess, if I get to pilot another jaeger, at least I can do it with my Dad again."

Elissa nodded as the elevator came to a stop, the doors opening. She stepped out into the hall and turned back to look at Chuck. "All right—here's hoping I don't pass out and ruin this run."

Chuck gave her a small smile. "If you're going to fall, I'd suggest falling towards the water. Don't want to squish anyone."

"Thanks. I'll keep that in mind!" she yelled as the doors began to close.


	7. Black Market

"I'm still not sure why you asked me to come. Like, I get that you don't want to come back here after what happened, but I'm not the biggest or the toughest-looking person, Newt, not by a longshot."

"Well, aside from the fact you carry a knife, know how to use it, and can scream loud enough to suggest you have three sets of lungs—"

"How do you know how loud I scream?"

"C'mon Liss, really? You want to—"

"Nope, nope, forget I ask. I am better off not being aware of what I do sometimes. So why did you ask me to come with you?"

"You may not look tough, but you are tough and you're not afraid to show any of the thugs just how tough you are, not after what almost happened a couple weeks ago."

"Yeah, let's not talk about that… So what exactly do you need to get anyway?"

"Whatever I can get my hands on. I doubt Hannibal Chau is going to want to part with any of his precious merchandise, but I think I can find a way to persuade him to part with whatever I need that he has—oh man, Liss, you gotta see this place. The man has everything and he knows so many practical things about handling kaiju parts—"

"Ahaha, yeah, if it's all the same to you, I'd like to stay away from the kaiju parts. Ever since I fell asleep with my head on that cross section or whatever, I've been having some really funky dreams and I can't get the smell out of my nose."

"You don't have to touch anything, just be ready to be back-up."

"I still think this is a bad plan, Newt. I'm shorter than you, and from what you've said, this Hannibal Chau dude has some pretty hefty muscle of his own and he survived being eaten by a baby kaiju somehow—I really don't think I'm going to be able to do anything—"

"Relax Liss, it'll be fine."

"You're crazy."

"Oh, we're here. Just stay close and don't say anything. They'll let me in."

"Whatever you say…"

"Hi; I'm here to see Hannibal Chau."

"I don't know any Hannibal Chau."

"Tell him I can get him lots of money for whatever kaiju parts he has—"

"He's not seeing anyone!"

"Hey, listen here you rat-faced fucker, go tell your boss two members of the PPDC are here to see him about some kaiju parts. Tell him if he doesn't see us, I'll get his agreement with the PPDC shut down and if any of his people are caught near kaiju remains again, we'll throw his ass in jail and set fire to his organization."

"Woah, Liss—"

"Shut up Newt. Hey, what do you know, it worked! Maybe this wasn't such a bad idea after all."

"Maybe it was. You can be pretty scary."

"Hey, you brought me."

"Lesson learned."

"I'm going to go ahead and assume the man in the pinky-red suit and all the gold is Hannibal Chau, so you're up, Newt. He doesn't look happy. Maybe you shouldn't have brought me."


	8. Boneslum

The Boneslum was awash in neon and covered in the shadows of the kaiju skeleton. It was loud and smelled of a hundred different things; claustrophobic and overwhelming. Elissa wasn't particularly fond of the district, but it was the closest area to the Shatterdome and it had damn good food. Damn good food that happened to feature Tendo's favourite. Elissa switched the bag of takeout to her other hand, hitched it up on her wrist and shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her leather jacket. A light rain began to fall, quickly plastering wisps of her hair to her face and making her hunker down deeper into her coat.

At the next intersection—if you could call the haphazard meeting of streets that—some dark shadows fell in step behind her. Elissa looked over her shoulder, but couldn't make out any details. She quickened her pace.

Attacks of varying kinds weren't uncommon in the Boneslum. People wanted money or sex or something else, and if they couldn't get it from someone, they would take it. Just last week, there's been a rash of muggings, one man turning up dead, left in the garbage of the Boneslum. The proximity of the PPDC didn't seem to matter, not even now that the kaiju were gone.

One of the big guys following her called out, but she ignored it, kept walking, though she did walk a little faster, nearly jogging.

"Hey little woman, where you hurrying to?"

Elissa pulled her free hand out of her pocket and reached back to grab the knife she kept at her belt while working, but it wasn't there. She'd taken it off when she left the Shatterdome. "Fuck," she muttered. She tightened her grip on the food and started jogging, planning to break into a run when her feet hit more solid ground, ground not littered with garbage.

Unfortunately, the men following her didn't seem too concerned with unsure footing. They started running, their much longer legs eating up the distance faster than Elissa could outrun them, even if she was in better physical shape. Panic started to fill Elissa and she cursed herself for coming alone. She'd never done that before, but everyone else had been busy and Elissa needed a break anyway. Even she got a headache if she went too long without some fresh air. Elissa pushed herself to run faster.

One of them grabbed her, but she changed direction fast and shook him free. When the next one got a hold of her, he wrapped his arms around her and rode her into the ground. Her cheek hit the ground and she felt it scrape open. The food was torn from her grasp. She opened her mouth to scream, but the man straddling her back slapped a hand over her face.

"No screaming baby. Besides, there ain't no one around to hear."

Elissa felt the point of a knife press against her back, under her sweater and thought _Thank God, they only want my money. _She struggled and the blade cut into her skin, but she wasn't going to make this easy for them. Hands pawed at her pockets and someone grabbed her wrists and held her arms out above her head. Elissa tried to get a look at her attackers, but they were wearing masks. Another one grabbed her ankles, effectively taking away any ability she had to struggle and the one on her back shoved her face into the ground, worsening the injury. Elissa was strong, but at five foot three, she didn't have a lot of weight to throw around.

"Get off her!"

Elissa had an earful of dirt, but she knew that voice. "Raleigh!" she cried.

The man grabbed a handful of her hair and slammed her face into the ground and she cried out for a different reason. A loud crack sounded above Elissa and the weight above her shifted. She tried to keep an eye on what followed, but she was having trouble seeing out of one eye and she didn't really want to move, so she listened the sounds of something harder than fists hitting flesh and the pounding of running feet.

"We got business motherfuckers?" Raleigh yelled after them.

No one answered, so Elissa assumed they didn't have business. Raleigh squatted beside her and she felt his hands on her back, examining the knife wound. It didn't feel that deep, but then she assumed she was probably in a little bit of a bad place to be judging her own injuries.

"Doesn't look too bad. Can you move?"

Elissa nodded and pushed herself to her hands and knees. Raleigh helped her stand and examined the injured side of her face. She winced but let him look. "When did you get so gangster?" she asked, after spitting out a mouthful of bloody saliva.

He shrugged. "I don't like it when the people I care about are attacked." Elissa smiled in response. "Oh, don't smile right now EJ. You got blood in your teeth."

She bared her teeth at him and started walking, weaving a little bit, unsteady. Raleigh wrapped an arm around her and swung her as gently as he could into his arms. Elissa protested, but gave up quickly because it did feel good to be off her feet and not have to worry about walking in a straight line. She leaned her head on Raleigh's shoulder, looked back at the site of her attack. There was a heavy-looking piece of wood on the ground, and the food, scatted amongst the garbage.

"Tendo is not going to happy he didn't get his food," she mumbled.

"Tendo will be fine."

Elissa turned her head so she was looking at the side of Raleigh's neck. She wrapped her left arm around his back and grabbed a handful of his sweater, using the grip to push her face deeper into his shoulder. "What were you doing out here anyway? I thought you and Mako were doing some tests or something today."

Raleigh leaned his cheek against Elissa's head. "Needed a break and Tendo let it slip you were on a food run. Thought I'd come and see if you needed help." He kissed her forehead. "And we haven't had a lot of time together lately with all the reconstruction work going on. Didn't think I'd have to come to your rescue."

"Didn't think I'd need a rescue."

Raleigh chucked and Elissa felt the vibrations against her side. "You don't usually do. Let's get your back to Beth so she can patch you up."

"Sounds good. My back is killing me."


	9. Ocean

Elissa came to with a great gasp, coughs racking her body and hurting her to her core, lines of fire raking out across her skin.

She couldn't move. It hurt too much to even think about moving. She was soaking wet, the smell of the ocean all around her. Her limbs were dead weight, hands locked around the edge of Stalker Chaos's shoulder plating, a hold she'd somehow managed to get as the jaeger went down; her hands and the few tubes from her drivesuit still connected or wedged somewhere were all that kept her from being swept away to the ocean. If she let go, she'd be gone. She was too weak, too broken to swim. Most of her body was already in the water, moving with the waves as they lapped against Stalker, nearly submerged where he lay in the shallows. Elissa coughed again as she forced herself to move her head, her eyes, to look around and try and get an idea of where she was, what had happened.

Vancouver. They'd been sent to fight Hellhound outside Vancouver. Category IV. Big sucker. It had been close, but they'd won. They'd been headed for the pick-up zone when—

_Systems Critical—Multi-Systems Failure—_

Explosion. The damage they'd taken must have been too much. Jared had been talking to LOCCENT, to Tendo. Systems started to fail, neural bridge weakened, almost flickered away.

_Reactor Breach. Evacuate conn-pod. _

The first explosion knocked Jared's harness loose, fried the left hemisphere. The computer tried to route Stalker's control entirely to Elissa, just as the high priority systems failed. The second explosion followed immediately after. Engulfed Jared in fire, sent Elissa flying.

Was Jared okay? No, there was no way he could have survived that. There was no way she should have survived that.

But she had.

The remaining strength started to fade from her hands, her arms. She didn't think the tubes would hold her once she let go. Pain lanced through her bones, her muscles, but she pulled herself up, over the edge and into Stalker's conn-pod, tumbling to the back of the space, landing with a few sickening crunches and the urge to vomit. Elissa did cough, blood splatting the metal beside her, dribbling down her chin. She wouldn't drown here though, so that was something. She could hurt without fear of dying.

Elissa tried to laugh at the thought, but it hurt. Oh God it hurt.

Her head swam, the pain beginning to overwhelm her. Body warming after the cold of the ocean? Shock subsiding? Who knew.

All she could smell was the salt of the ocean and the copper of her blood. She looked down and sure enough, her drivesuit was covered in blood, some drying and sticky, some liquid and black. Her head hurt, she was shaking.

Elissa was dying. She could feel it.

But it was fine. It was good. They'd stopped Hellhound, done their job. Vancouver was safe for now. Stalker was gone and so was Jared. Her father had died two years ago and Raleigh had left. She found it odd thoughts of her father and Raleigh came to her then, but then, it didn't make sense for Elissa to live on without them. With all those pieces of her missing. She'd gone out fighting and that was all that mattered. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the hurt, the burning, the blood. Tried to think about the things she fought for, about what had made her happy.

Working on the jaegers, on Stalker and Gipsy.

Listening to the deep rumble of her Dad's voice as he taught her.

How safe she felt with Jared watching over her.

Sparing with Raleigh in the wee hours of the night.

Darkness closed in and she let it, concentrating on the smell of the ocean air and how it reminded her of Alaska, of the Shatterdome—the only place she'd felt at home.


	10. Injury

The bar was small and a good distance away from the Wall, and Raleigh had been hoping he wouldn't see anyone from work—the evening was never as enjoyable with ignorant assholes walking around calling him flyboy and talking shit about the PPDC. He hadn't been so lucky that night, but at least the familiar crowd was thinner at the bar he'd chosen and he could try and avoid them. All he was interested in was getting drunk enough that he might actually manage to get some sleep.

Raleigh hunkered down at the bar, old and wooden and rough, and sipped at beer after beer—all he could get with his ration cards—until his head got fuzzy and his vision blurred around the edges. The TV above the bar hummed loudly and suddenly as the bartender turned up the volume. The retired jaeger pilot winced. There was only one reason to turn the TV up in a bar these days: something to do with the kaiju war. Conversations died off, the clink of pool balls fell silent, and all eyes turned to the old set. This included Raleigh, as much as he wished he could look away. That part of his life was over, but he couldn't turn a blind eye. Someone he knew might be involved. Usually that wasn't the case, but unfortunately there was a first time for everything.

And that time, it turned out, was this time.

"_After taking down the kaiju known as 'Hellhound' outside Vancouver two days ago, Canada's second jaeger, Stalker Chaos, succumbed to the damage it sustained and exploded on the way to the pick-up zone."_

Raleigh set down his beer, forcing himself to take deep and measured breaths despite the tightness in his chest.

"_One of the pilots is confirmed dead and the other has been in intensive care since the explosion and there is no word yet on whether or not the pilot will pull through. The PPDC is expected—Excuse me, but it seems we have just received a statement from the PPDC."_

Raleigh watched the reporter's eyes skim the piece of paper she'd been passed and he held his breath, waiting to hear. It seemed to take forever. Chatter was picking up in the bar again, people losing interest. The report wasn't about a battle so no one cared. The pilots were disposable to them, no longer heroes to be worshipped. All they saw was meat to be fed to the kaiju to keep them occupied so the rest of the world could go on living.

All Raleigh could see was blood and bone and circuitry burns and all he could hear was Yancy screaming. He didn't believe in God, but he asked whoever, whatever was listening to make sure Elissa was all right and hoped he wasn't talking to himself. It felt wrong to hope Jared was the one who was dead, but Elissa couldn't be gone.

"_The pilot, Elissa Jayden, is expected to make a full recovery." _

Anything the reporter said afterwards Raleigh didn't hear. He was overwhelmed with relief, its magnitude unexpected and welcome. However, it was dimmed by the words of the man sitting next to him at the bar.

"That's what they get for letting a little cunt like that drive a jaeger!" he yelled, laughter rising at his response.

Raleigh spared a glance for the TV, where the news report was now showing a picture of Elissa and Jared from before their first deployment, dressed in their drivesuits, and Elissa only coming up to Jared's shoulder. They were probably talking about the service record of Stalker Chaos—that was what they did when a jaeger went down.

The laughter in the bar rose again, spawning from another lewd comment the man had made, and Raleigh's vision turned red. He drained his beer and got to his feet, the stool clattering against the floor, the noise dulled only slightly by the carpet of peanut shells.

"I bet she only got in by fucking her way into the ranks!"

"Elissa Jayden is a hero," Raleigh said loud enough to be heard over the laughing and drawing the man's attention around. The laughter died away, probably because of the look on Raleigh's face, but the man was still smirking, not getting the hint. Raleigh knew his face—some guy from the wall. Spent a lot of time talking shit. "And she risks her life to save assholes like you every day."

"Oh, looks like flyboy's got himself a girlfriend—"

He never finished the sentence.

Raleigh's fist connected with his jaw, sending him stumbling backwards a few steps. Blood covered the lower half of the man's face. He bared his teeth in a savage grin and he launched himself at Raleigh, who met the charge and wrapped his arms around the drunk, throwing him hard to the ground. One of the man's buddies jumped in, attacking Raleigh from behind, but even with a few beers in him, Raleigh's reflexes were top-notch, military trained and the guy didn't stand a chance. Raleigh rounded on him and landed a solid hit to the guy's gut, the air whooshing from his lungs.

The first man struggled to his feet and landed a hit on Raleigh's ribs. "Why don't you go back to the Rangers flyboy? Looks like they could use all the help they can get."

Raleigh's next punch broke the man's nose and the one after that snapped a rib. Hard hits, quick succession. He went down, his friend got up. Someone else jumped in. Raleigh lost track, concentrated on landing hits, on keeping the alcohol from completely taking over his system. The world was blurring worse and he could taste blood in his mouth, but it felt good.

The fight didn't go that long before it was broken up. The bartender pulled Raleigh out of the fray and started yelling. Raleigh didn't hear. He yanked himself out of the bigger man's hold and marched to the door, grabbing his coat and bag as he passed.

Outside, a snowstorm was picking up, but Raleigh didn't notice. He stayed on the side of the road and headed for worker housing, fighting to keep upright, fighting to keep Elissa out of his mind. He'd left her behind. He'd left all that behind when Yancy died. But it didn't matter how hard he pushed, the war kept pushing back into his life.

And now he was going to have find another new bar.


	11. Connection

_October 3__rd__, 2024_

Two days since the explosion, since Stalker went down, since Jared died. The nurse told me today they were switching the dose of my pain meds and the shrink told me to start writing down what I was feeling, thinking, whatever. Says it'll help me deal with Jared's death. Like she knows what she's talking about. She's not a pilot. She's never drifted with anyone. Never known anyone like pilots know each other. Jared died and took a part of me with him. How do you fix that? How do you deal with that? How do you move past something like that?

I don't think I can and I don't think writing a fucking journal is going to help, especially when I'm high off my ass on pain meds, but the Shrink takes my tablet when I'm out to check so I'm going to write them anyway.

* * *

_October 4__th__, 2024_

Doc gave me a rundown of my injuries today. Circuitry burns on my left side from when the system tried to give me full control of Stalker and failed. Burns from the explosion in the same areas. Broken tibia, three broken ribs, broken collar bone. But I'm alive and healing well apparently. Apparently that should make me happy. Shrink tells me to focus on the positive.

I asked how to do that when Jared was dead. We were co-pilots for six years, lovers for five, engaged for one. I feel raw not being connected to him anymore. Something's missing. And not just from him. Part of me went down with Stalker too. I assembled him, named him, made him and he's gone too.

If you've never piloted a jaeger, you can't understand, but the connection isn't just between the pilots, it's between the pilots and the machine, the jaeger taking on as much of its pilots as the pilots take on of each other.

Stalker Chaos was an extension of myself and now he's gone too.

My entire being is raw and red and broken.

How is this supposed to help?

* * *

_October 5__th__, 2024_

Spent the night reliving the explosion, the critical error message, the rushing wind and rain and the heat, the pain.

Woke up crying, screaming for Jared.

Nurse asked me what I needed. I said Raleigh. She sedated me. Apparently I got hostile when she told me there was no one named Raleigh who had come to visit me, just Stacker and Tendo.

* * *

_October 6__th__, 2024_

I think jaeger pilots understand the bonds between people better than anyone else. There's no other job in the world where you literally get inside someone else's head, where you have access to all their thoughts, knowledge, feelings. It's a powerful thing, but they teach us not to dig, not to chase. Focus on the bond, focus on moving the jaeger, on fighting. Block everything else out. But even with laser-guided focus, you still pick up things, still see things, still know things you were never supposed to.

You don't get definitive thoughts in a drift, not unless your partner is thinking something specific. Go right, duck, jump, punch him in the stomach, use the plasma canon, sword. At least, Jared and I used specific commands. Not everyone does. We thought things at each other and the conn-pod was silent unless we were talking to LOCCENT. But usually, all you get is impressions. Emotions. Blurry images of memories. Sensations. It's indescribable unless you've been in a drift.

Jared knew things about me I didn't even know. He knew what I was going to do before I did it.

He kept me out of trouble, kept me from running my life, my career into the ground. I don't think before I speak a lot of the time. Jared did my thinking for me. He was my social filter, my hindsight before I did anything to regret.

He was good. Great. Better than me. He knew what he wanted and he knew how to make me happy.

He knew I loved Raleigh, that there was no way to get him out of my heart, and Jared loved me anyway. He loved me enough for both of us, I think. I did love Jared, I still do, but it was different. Slow burn, growing into something steady with every small gesture. At least, I think so.

I'll never know what would have happened.

I knew what Jared was thinking all the time too, knew what he was going to do, knew what his smiles meant. He had a great smile. Could express so many things in one expression.

I'll never have someone inside my head like that again. Never know someone so completely again.

Sometimes I think I can still hear Jared. I know it's just the remnants of our connection, our drift, but it's nice to still hear his voice, and I guess part of me is glad I'll never forget what he sounds like.

* * *

_October 7__th__, 2024_

Tendo came back today. They've started packing up the Icebox and getting ready to move everything to Hong Kong. Gipsy Danger, what's left of Stalker Chaos, all the equipment. Tendo's not happy, neither is the Marshall, but that's to be expected. Hercules Hansen came up from Australia to help with the move, make sure things are in order, but most of the staff is already in Hong Kong. We've got one final battle, Pentecost likes to say. He gave me my job as a tech back, one of the leads on the Gipsy restoration. Tendo says there was never any doubt, since the project was mostly my idea.

I wonder who they'll get to pilot her.

Talking to Tendo helped with the pain. I didn't feel so lost when he was here. I guess friendship is just another bond and it can help dull the edges of sharp wounds. He let me have a few sips of his coffee and I felt a little more like myself.

Doc is weaning me off the good pain meds. Wants to get me back on my feet soon so I can make the trip to Hong Kong. I've still go to pack my shit before flying across the ocean. Doc also tells me the nightmares are continuing. The security feeds pick up my screaming and thrashing. I'll get a sleeping pill if it continues. The scars will be worse if I don't stop moving and give them time to heal.

I asked Doc if I'd be able to pilot another jaeger. He doesn't know. Yet. They have more tests to run. Says it's not likely though.

I can still feel Stalker sometimes, still feel like I'm in that harness and I wonder if what's left of him is moving with me, like the old ghost story, legend. I believe it. I've seen it. Well, I think I've seen it.

Maybe I'm still connected to Stalker. Maybe that won't fade.

I can already feel Jared a little less. Voice is still strong. Telling me to learn how to do laundry for myself.

I cried for almost an hour today. These journals aren't fucking helping.

* * *

_October 8__th__, 2024_

Nurse asked me who Raleigh was today. She hasn't been in the PPDC long. Says I call for him in my sleep.

I didn't answer her. Threw the jug of water at her. Hit her in the head.

They sedated me.

* * *

_October 9__th__, 2024_

Shrink is not happy with me. Says I'm supposed to talk about my losses in these journals. She wants to me to work through losing Jared. She only talks about losing him. Doesn't talk about losing Stalker. I don't think she thinks I count Stalker as a loss or should count him as a loss. She doesn't want me to talk about Raleigh. He's not dead. I didn't lose him. She's wrong, but I can't explain it to her without getting mad. Told her I'd talk about my Dad instead, though he's been dead for two years and I've come to terms with it.

He died doing what he loved: fixing things. He was helping repair the Shatterdome when part of the walkway he was replacing collapsed and he was crushed. Terrible way to go and his death will always stick with me, but he wanted to go out doing something to help. He couldn't be a pilot because he was colour blind, but he could fix things, maintain things and that would be helping too. My Dad was a hero too. I love him and miss him every God damn day.

Is that good enough Shrink?

* * *

_October 10__th__, 2024_

Woke up feeling angry at everything today. Didn't throw anything at anyone though, so they didn't sedate me. I tried reading, but I kept thinking about Jared and his inability to understand how I found reading enjoyable. We used to laugh about that a lot. He used to get mad when I'd want to spend our free time in the Academy reading though. Thought because I spent all day reading manuals and shit that I shouldn't want to read when I was done my work. But reading fiction is how I unwind. Reading or fixing or building, but there wasn't a whole lot of scrap metal around Kodiak Island to play with.

We fought about my attitude too. I'm brash and Jared worked hard to blunt it around certain people. I told him not to worry about it. They could take me as I was or leave me and it was no skin off my back, but he wasn't content with that. He needed everyone to like him because most people did without him trying. We fought about that too.

Sometimes we didn't talk for days, but people connected through drifting sometimes don't talk. I'm not a big fan of silence though.

That's where Raleigh came in, I think, but I'm not supposed to talk about him. Nurse did look up who Raleigh was though and asked me what my connection was to him. I told her we were friends, good friends, but that doesn't exactly cover it, but the complexities there are no one's business but ours. I think Tendo and Yancy knew, but Yancy's gone and Tendo's too smart to say anything.

The truth of if Shrink, is I'll never be over Jared's death and the wound will never completely heal. You can't understand that because it's impossible for you to imagine having part of someone live on in your head. We weren't connected via drift when he died, but I have seven years of drifts and training in my head. Seven years is time enough for anyone to grow close, and more than enough time for jaeger pilots to get to know each other inside out.

Jared will always be with me. Stalker will always be with me.

The difference is I might get Stalker back one day, but Jared's never coming back.

He's gone.

He's dead.

* * *

_October 11__th__, 2024_

Doc's prepping me for release today. He'll let me out this evening so I can pack my things and get ready to leave for Hong Kong tomorrow. The Icebox shuts down, closes its doors forever tomorrow. I get a new nurse for the time being. He's very sweet and good at small talk. He actually seems interested in what I'll be doing once I start work again, though I don't think he knows exactly what I'm saying. He's good at conversation. I'm glad he'll be coming to Hong Kong with me.

Hopefully I achieved what you wanted me to Shrink, though I still think these journals were waste of my time. I've got jagged holes in me that no amount of talking will fill. Maybe time will help. Maybe time and friends. Maybe I'll never heal. Maybe you can't when connections as strong as the ones I had break. Find me another pilot who lost their partner and I'll ask if time helps.

I'll survive though. I can hear Jared telling me I'll survive.

"You're the strong one, baby. Always have been."


	12. Tattoos

Raleigh awoke in a cold sweat, the remnants of the memory, the nightmare still clinging to the edges of his mind. It was the same nightmare he had every time he managed to fall asleep: Yancy being torn from the conn-pod, Raleigh awash with his brother's terror and pain and panic. Sometimes he saw Mako in Yancy's place now. Every once in a while, it was Elissa. That night, it had been Yancy who was torn away from him.

He sat up and freed himself from the covers where they'd tangled around his legs, dropping his head into his hands and taking long, deep breaths to slow his heartbeat back to normal, to banish the last of the images from his mind. Tears stung the backs of his eyes and the pain felt as fresh as the day it had happened. It was always like this though. He knew it would recede to the familiar dull ache in a few hours, but until then, he would relive the worst day of his life alone.

A small sound beside him drew Raleigh's attention and he remembered he wasn't alone, not this time.

He looked down at Elissa, asleep on her stomach, one arm tucked under the pillow and the other flung above her head, her long red hair covering her face and shoulders, sprawling over the blankets in tangled waves. She looked peaceful, her back rising and falling in even measurement, the sound of her breaths barely audible even in the silence of Raleigh's room. He watched her for a moment, matched his breathing to hers without thinking. He felt himself smile a little, calmed.

Raleigh reached down and gently brushed Elissa's hair back from her face. She nudged her cheek against his fingers but didn't wake; she'd always been a heavy sleeper, unless a Breach alarm sounded, then she awake and moving faster than almost anyone. He smiled wider as he ran his fingers along her shoulder, her skin smooth and soft around the straps of the loose tank top. A light kiss to her shoulder blade resulted in a soft intake of breath and a slight shift, Elissa moving towards Raleigh's warmth as he leaned over her. He kissed his way along her skin, moving the blankets and her shirt as he went in order to expose the trinity of tattoos along her spine, clustered between and just below her shoulder blades, in line with her heart.

The tattoos marked milestones in her life, dreams coming true, nightmares become reality—the PPDC wings for when she became a Ranger, Stalker Chaos's symbol for when she named her jaeger, made him hers, and Jared's ID number for when he died in the explosion that should have killed both of them. Raleigh ran his fingers lightly down her spin, tracing the slightly faded lines of the tattoos.

The memories she had inscribed on her skin, Raleigh shared, in the best and worst ways. Excitement, loss, finding a home in a giant robot. Unexpected, unwanted, needed feelings that connected them, marked forever on Elissa's skin.

Raleigh's lips replaced his fingers on her back and he felt Elissa awaken, tension filling her body as she became aware of what was going on. He heard her chuckle sleepily and knew she would be smiling, but he didn't look up. Slowly, he slid his hands down, pushing the covers away and then moved his hands back up, fingers dipping under the thin fabric of her tank top, gathering it up and sliding it off, over her head. Elissa took hold of it with one hand and tossed it somewhere, leaving her back exposed to Raleigh's touch.

Raleigh straddled her legs, putting himself in line with her body, his hands never leaving her back as he moved. Elissa laughed again, stuffing her face into her pillow to muffle the noise. He leaned down, hands running up her sides, and kissed her spine, the top of her shoulder, buried his face into the curve of her neck, smiling against her skin when she gave a small shriek of a laugh and reached awkwardly behind her to swat at his head. He wrapped his arms around her, wedging them between the mattress and her stomach, and rolled onto his back, taking her with him, bodies vibrating against each other as they laughed.

The noise faded and Elissa turned her head to look at Raleigh over her shoulder, understanding plain on her features. She'd lost a co-pilot, someone she loved too. She knew the memories could come back to haunt you, knew they could keep you awake, knew they could eat at you. That was why she'd had Jared's ID number tattooed below Stalker's symbol. To always keep him with her, to find peace with her memory of him. The tattoo was a memorial and it had helped her deal with her loss. Raleigh met her steady gaze with his own and knew she'd get all the information from the one glance, their connection and knowledge of each other as strong as if they'd drifted more than once, long ago. She reached over to touch his arm, their gazes locked for a second longer.

The former pilot turned around in Raleigh's arms, straddling his hips and pushing herself into a sitting position, the fingers of one hand wrapped around the chain of his dog tags. With only a little tug from Elissa, Raleigh sat up and wrapped his arms loosely around her. Elissa's hands were on his chest, fingers rough and cold like they always were, but Raleigh didn't mind. They'd warm up. She leaned in and his forehead dropped against hers, their noses brushing, breath mingling. The movement was automatic and comforting.

It was Elissa who tilted her head forward and kissed him, softly at first, a bare touch of lips. It was Raleigh who deepened the kiss, hands on her hips, thumbs against the joint, fingers digging in.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close as she moaned against his mouth. Soft sounds of metal clinking against metal mingled with short gasps of breath as their dog tags and the piece of metal from Stalker Chaos Elissa wore around her neck met, the sounds muffled a second later when her bare chest crushed against his. Elissa's fingers dug in against his ribs. She bit down gently on his bottom lip, leaning back a bit into his hands. He smirked at her when she let go and shifted his grip lower down her back so he could lay them down on the bed, her knees remaining on either side of his hips as he lowered himself above her to kiss her again, deep and slow.

As his lips trailed down her neck, Elissa murmured his name against his shoulder, her hands roaming freely over his chest and stomach, anywhere she could reach. Her hands were warm now, rough fire on his skin. Raleigh kissed her again, hooked his fingers around the waistband of the boxers she wore to bed and pulled them clear of her legs. She laughed against his mouth, joy and need contrasting the sound as she pushed at his sweatpants, her lack of reach making it difficult; she grumbled something about being short and Raleigh joined in her laughter before stripping down, his lips finding hers again immediately after.

Their laughter turned to moans and quick, quiet noises of pleasure as he slid inside her, bodies instinctively falling into a slow, familiar rhythm, movements memorized and perfected. Elissa's back arched, Raleigh placed a hand above her tailbone, holding her to him. Raleigh's forehead touched her shoulder, Elissa's fingers sliding into his hair, cupping the back of his head.

Their pace increased, movements losing some of their precision, faltering under hitching breaths and teeth nibbling ever so gently at tender skin, fingernails digging in, raking marks along shoulder blades. Elissa breathed his name and Raleigh captured it with his lips, the kisses frantic and rough as the heat built between them, pleasure so high it was almost unbearable. They came together, the heat breaking and spreading out between them, and they were still kissing, riding the sensations, feeding off the noises and brushes of skin, tiny breaths of laughter as tensions and anger and pain and fear released, as the nightmares were banished completely.

When Raleigh rolled to one side, Elissa moved with him, curling against him and hooking one of her legs around his. He wrapped an arm around her, her head pillowed on the front of his shoulder, his fingers rubbing slow lines up and down along her spine. Raleigh pulled the blanket out from under them, covering them as they cooled, and with their feet on their pillows, they spoke quietly of memories until morning.


	13. Dreams

The air was cold, just like it always was in Alaska near the water, but there was hardly any wind and the three rangers were bundled up in thick parkas, boots, and had a bottle of vodka to share between them. Elissa was also wedged between Yancy and Raleigh, the Becket Brothers using their superior size to keep her warm. They were sitting on Gipsy Danger's shoulder, the jaeger standing in waist-deep water far enough away from Anchorage and the Shatterdome for the world around them to be mostly black, for the stars to stand out above as brilliant points of light, thousands and thousands of them.

But they weren't there for the stars.

They were there for the Northern Lights, the bright bands of green and purple and blue moving slowly across the sky, turning the world below to a symphony of neon colour and bringing smiles to the rangers below.

Elissa took a long pull from the bottle of vodka and passed it to Yancy. "When was the last time either of you thought about aliens in space?" she asked, leaning back on her hands.

"Don't ask me," Yancy said around the bottle. "Rals was always the one to spend time wondering what was up there."

She turned to Raleigh, her red braid slipping over her shoulder. "What about it Rals?"

He shrugged, took the bottle from Yancy, their arms behind Elissa. "I used to think about it a lot. Whenever I felt this world was going to shit. I used to think about who else was alive up there, how their worlds were different than ours." He took a drink and stared thoughtfully up at the colourful sky. "I guess I haven't thought about it since the kaiju showed up. Been too busy worrying about killing the next kaiju." Raleigh stole another quick sip before returning the bottle to Elissa. "What about you EJ—ever think about it?"

"Sometimes. Mostly just to imagine planets full of kaiju."

Yancy snorted and snagged the bottle before Elissa had a chance to grab another drink. "A kaiju planet—scary shit."

"Give me back the booze, Yance."

"Sorry—all gone."

Elissa made a noise akin to a dying whale and flopped back onto the plating of Gipsy's shoulder, an arm flung over her face dramatically. Yancy and Raleigh both laughed, the younger brother dropping onto his back beside Elissa. Yancy followed suit a moment later, the empty bottle balanced on the shoulder a few feet away from them. The remnants of laughter faded as they stared up at the Northern Lights. Elissa looked to her right at Raleigh, who smiled at her and reached down to squeeze her hand, and then left at Yancy who reached over to ruffle her hair without looking.

She closed her eyes, letting the colours dance across her eyelids, and smiled as the cold air washed over her.

* * *

When Elissa awoke from the dream, she was smiling, but she couldn't figure out where the dream had come from. It wasn't based on any events that had actually transpired and it wasn't anything they'd ever talked about doing.

Regardless, she knew she'd hold the dream with her as if it was a memory pulled from a drift.

Dreaming of peace and friends was a nice break from the usual nightmares, and it had been a long time since she'd had a nice dream.


	14. K-Science

Newt was elbow-deep in a kaiju specimen when Elissa walked into the lab. She'd never spent a great deal of time down there, just once every now and again to help fix equipment when Newt needed another pair of hands and someone who wouldn't tell him to shut up. She knew the lab though, knew enough not to stray too far onto Hermann's side of the room, especially if she was covered in grease and dirt like she was now. Elissa skirted the line the pair of scientists had drawn down the middle of the room and hopped over a pile of kaiju guts until she was firmly standing on Newt's side of the lab and could put her toolbox down where it wouldn't track dirt on Hermann's side of the lab.

"What'd you break this time Newt?" she asked.

He didn't bother backing away from whatever the piece of kaiju he was working on was. "The mass spectrometer is acting up again, making the chugging noise whenever I put a sample through. I need the mass spectrometer Elissa—"

"Yeah, I know that Newt but you're perfectly capable of fixing that thing by yourself, so I'm thinking you called me down here under pretense of fixing your toy so you had someone to talk to while you dissect that hunk of kaiju." She crossed her arms and hitched a hip against a nearby table, toolbox at her feet. "I do have other work to do, Newt."

"I'm on the verge of something here Liss, and I can't—I can't stop working to fix the damn thing—"

Elissa raised her hands, warding off the incoming torrent of words. Newt only called her Liss when he was freaking out—two less syllables to spit out amongst everything else. "Okay, okay. I'll fix it. You just keep working."

"Good, good, good."

Elissa shook her head and walked over to the mass spectrometer. The big thing was ancient and the casing was covered in dried bits of kaiju, but all the working parts would be clean. Newt was a messy guy, but he took good care of his scientific equipment. She set to work dismantling the thing as Newt started telling her about his kaiju-as-clones theory. She'd heard it before, knew it almost by heart, but the drone of Newt's voice had become a sort of music to work to when she was in the lab, so she let him ramble on and she made a vague noise of understanding and agreement every now and again, spaced between the clanging of her tools.

The chugging noise was caused by the misalignment of some of the moving parts within the machine—same as always. What Newt really needed to do was replace the thing, or at least buy new parts, but he kept putting it off and maintaining his stance that there were more important things to spend the money on. Elissa didn't disagree, but fixing the thing over and over again was getting tiring.

"Do you know what it would mean if the kaiju were in fact cloned? Do you?" Newt's voice had risen in pitch and it went higher still when he realized Elissa wasn't paying attention. "Elissa!"

She gave a little jump and looked over her shoulder at him. "Sorry, what?"

"Do you know what it would mean if the kaiju were cloned?!"

"Uh… no. Should I?"

Newt threw his hands up in exasperation, flinging bits of kaiju everywhere. "It means they were created for a specific purpose, it means they're not attacking us out of some animalistic need but that they're being ordered to do it—that the kaiju themselves are weapons."

Elissa grinned at him. She'd known the answer. He scowled and rolled his eyes before diving back into his dissection.

Newt remained silent for all of thirty seconds before starting in on another theory, this one about how the kaiju were constructed and if they could reproduce or not, if they were clones. Elissa finished realigning the mass spectrometer and closed up the casing while Newt was describing his speculations about kaiju brains in excruciating detail. He'd move onto the bone structure next; Elissa had heard this one too. But she knew Newt thought through things best while talking, so she let him go on, even cleaning the casing of the machine to give him more time, though he wouldn't notice if she snuck out.

"The brains are pyramidal, which is such an odd shape and probably has something to do with the environment in which they're built or maybe it just fits better inside their skulls, thought those are all different shapes, so what could the brain shape mean?"

"Newt."

"Both brains are the same shape, so there's got to be a reason—"

"Newt!"

A significant jolt went through his body when her voice got through to him. "What? Are you done?"

"Yeah. Anything else you want me to take a look at while I'm down here?"

Newt gestured towards the wall of refrigerated compartments lining the wall behind him. "No, no, everything else is working fine, good, but could I bounce something off you? I've got a new theory."

"I guess. As long as you're not expecting any sort of intelligent commentary on the matter. Biology isn't my strong suit."

But Newt was already talking, something about how the kaiju could function in our world, where the chemical make-up of the air and water and land was so different than what they were probably used to. Elissa stood by and listened, trying to follow Newt's words, to make some sense of what he was saying. However, she caught sight of the time via the clock on the wall and yawned. It was late—way later than she'd realized. She needed to get to bed. They had tests to run on Gipsy the next morning—technically later that day—and she needed to be alert for it. But Newt was in full swing, which meant, short of throwing something at Newt, there was no way she was going to get his attention, and since everything nearby was hard, expensive, glass, or guts, she wasn't keep on throwing something at him. So she waited.

And felt her eyelids begin to droop, her body begin to lean.

"Elissa? Liss? You're using a cross-section of a kaiju gland as a pillow so could you move? I don't think I'll be able to get another one of those and that's very important."


	15. Mess Hall

Common ground. Find some common ground and a true will come.

How did one find common ground with someone they didn't really understand?

Mako sat down across the table from Elissa without saying anything. She placed her tray on the table and started eating, offering a quick nod in acknowledgement when Elissa looked up at her, brows drawn together in curiosity. She didn't say anything. The older woman was hunched over blueprints and technical manuals on tablets, some of which belonged to Gipsy Danger, and some to Stalker Chaos. Her lunch was forgotten on the table beside her.

"When was the last time you ate something?" Mako asked, eyeing the untouched food.

"Uh, I don't know." Elissa looked back up at Mako, the same curios expression on her face. Mako couldn't blame her for that—it wasn't like she'd ever shown much interest in her well-being before. "Why?"

"I have noticed you forget to eat when you are absorbed in a project, and I know this project is important to you."

Elissa narrowed her eyes like she was looking for a lie or something, though she wouldn't find it and she knew she wouldn't find it; Elissa and Mako had never exactly clicked before, but Mako had never lied to her. The redhead sighed and ran her hands back through her hair, gathering up the tablets and papers and shoving them into her bag, sitting on the bench beside her. She pulled her tray in front of her and began methodically eating the pasta on her plate. Some of the tension eased out of her body.

"Have you determined how much of Stalker Chaos will be put toward the Mark III restoration program?"

"About seventy percent of him, just like I thought, though some of the pieces I thought might be compatible aren't—why do you never refer to it as the Gipsy Danger restoration? Why always Mark III?"

"That is the official designation. I didn't know it was Gipsy Danger until after the pitch was approved."

Elissa snorted and Mako knew she wasn't going to like what she said next. "As if there was any doubt. The Marshall wasn't going to approve you pitch to rebuild an old jaeger for this final push or whatever." Elissa closed her eyes right as the words finished leaving her mouth, chewed on her bottom lip. "I'm sorry Mako—I know the Marshall doesn't play favourites. I'm just… tired and you're right. This project is important to me and it's getting to me in ways I didn't expect."

Mako bowed her head in response to the apology. "You were friends with Yancy and Raleigh Becket."

Elissa nodded, confirming the statement. She pushed the pasta around on her plate but didn't eat any more of it. "Stalker Chaos and Gipsy Danger were both stationed here while active and I was in the Academy the year after Raleigh and Yancy. We were… close. I also helped assemble and maintain both of the jaegers. Going through these files, remembering things…" She pinched the bridge of her nose between a thumb and forefinger and Mako realized Elissa was trying to hold back tears.

Mako looked around the mess hall, but no one was paying attention. It was not hard to ascertain that Elissa didn't like displaying her emotions in public; you didn't have to know her long to pick up that bit of information. They were sitting at a corner table as well, Elissa's back to the wall. Mako shifted down the bench to better block Elissa from the view of others.

Catching the emotion, Elissa laughed, the sound made heavy with unshed tears. "Thanks Mako."

"You are welcome." Mako fell silent a moment, eating a bit of her own lunch, her grumbling stomach thanking her for it. "Elissa, I want to be able to work on this project with you. There is no one who knows Stalker Chaos better than you and not many who know Gipsy Danger better."

Elissa nodded, wiping at her eyes. "I apologize for making things difficult."

"I am not looking for an apology. I should not have tried to keep you off the project when your skills will be needed, and appreciated."

The redhead smiled at Mako, a real smile, free of any sarcasm or other negative emotion. She extended a hand across the table, which Mako shook after a second of mental deliberation. "Truce then," Elissa said, making Mako give a small smile as well. Elissa sniffed back the rest of her tears, though her eyes were still a little red, puffy around the edges. "First things first—I've got to get these documents to the Marshall so he can officially approve Stalker's use in the restoration. If he waits any longer, some PPDC brass is going to haul him off to be melted down for the Wall."

Mako watched Elissa get to her feet and charge off, bag slung over her shoulder and lunch tray abandoned on the table. She may not have known or gotten along with Elissa very well, but she knew the woman was happiest and easiest to deal with when she had work to do. The pair of them were after the same thing—the restoration of Gipsy Danger to assist in the last push from the Jaeger Program—and neither of them wanted to see the program die. Perhaps finding common ground wouldn't be so difficult after all.


	16. Goodbye

Elissa knew it was wrong of her to be mad at Raleigh for leaving. He had every reason to leave, to want to put distance between himself and the Shatterdome and everything that went with it. He'd lost his brother, the only family he had left. Elissa understood that he was in a great deal of pain and leaving was the only way he could deal with it. But she didn't want him to go.

She stood in the doorway of Raleigh's room, leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed under her chest as she watched him move about his room, gathering up the last of his things. There was a bandage over one side of his forehead and he was moving as if he was still sore, or maybe he was just hampered by the thick bandage Elissa knew covered his side. But he was conscious and he was moving and he had been cleared by the doctors to travel. He was getting out of there as fast as he could.

Elissa understood, she really did, but the thought of the Shatterdome without Raleigh in it was… It wasn't something she wanted to dwell on.

"I think you're making a mistake," she said.

"I'm well aware of what you think, EJ, but I can't stay." Raleigh stopped shoving his sweaters into his bag and looked up at her, his face open and his pain exposed. "I can't have anyone else in my head. I can't pilot another jaeger. There's nothing for me to do here."

Her face softened as she took in his expression, a small sigh escaping her lips. Elissa pushed off the door and crossed the room, stopping somewhere inside three feet away from him. She watched as he finished stuffing clothes into his duffel bag and did it up, watched him look around the room to see if he'd forgotten anything. Watched the emotions play over his face, saw the tension in his shoulders. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but she didn't. She kept her arms crossed tightly about herself and took a deep breath. She didn't want to yell at him, but she felt like she might anyway.

"Are you sure you're well enough to travel?" she asked instead.

"I'm fine EJ."

She wanted to scream that he wasn't fine, that he was lying to himself, but she knew Raleigh and knew he would be fine. He would find a way to deal with his pain, but she wanted to help. She wanted to scream at him, to get him to fight to get his emotions going, but he wouldn't fight back. Not in a screaming match.

So she stayed quiet. Watched him triple-check his bags. He just had two. One stuffed with clothes, the other with his meagre collection of personal items, including the stack of photos Yancy had taken over the course of their time with the PPDC; Elissa could see the corners of the photos sticking out of one of the pockets. Yancy had been quite an excellent photographer and the room had been covered with pictures of places the Becket boys had been, people they'd met and worked with, jaegers from all around the world. Whatever had caught Yancy's eye. Somewhere in there was a picture of Raleigh and Yancy with Elissa wedged between them, taken on the day she'd become a Ranger.

Unexpectedly, tears pushed at the back of Elissa's eyes and she sniffed, trying to keep them from falling.

Raleigh's hand appeared on her shoulder, squeezing. She almost pulled away. She hadn't wanted to cry, but the first tear slipped down her cheek and it seemed impossible to stop. There were no sobs, just silent, slow tears and the refusal to look Raleigh in the face. He pulled her into a hug and she, somewhat reluctantly, wrapped her arms around his chest, face pressed into the warm knit of his sweater.

"I don't want you to go," she whispered.

"I know," he replied, lips moving against the top of her head. "I have to."

"I know."

Elissa closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to calm herself. There were many things she wanted to say—that he knew where to find her if he needed her, needed someone to share his pain with, that she wanted to help—but Raleigh knew all that. They'd been friends for years. He knew. So, she settled for the silence again and held on a little tighter, tried to tell herself this wasn't the last time she would see Raleigh. This wasn't the last time she would hug him.

Raleigh was the one to back away, one hand still on her shoulder even as he grabbed his duffel and slung it over his shoulder. "I've got to go now, EJ. The chopper is leaving in a few."

Elissa finally looked up at him, saw the red rimming his eyes, saw the pain working its way to the surface despite his watery smile. "Rals, I—"

He moved his hand to the back of her neck and pulled her to him again, placing a kiss on her forehead. "I'll catch you later," he said, voice tight, eyes a little wide. Maybe he feared what she'd been about to say, except Elissa wasn't even sure what her next words would have been. "Watch out for Tendo for me," he requested, walking backwards and offering a wink, the gesture forced like he was trying to bring the Raleigh she knew to the forefront, like he was trying to not show his pain.

Elissa nodded and made herself smile, swallowing past the burn in her throat as she watched Raleigh grab his other bag and walk away.


	17. The Drift

**PREPARE FOR NEURAL HANDSHAKE  
****Initiating in 3… 2… 1…****  
**

_Elissa was young, tiny, running through grass, staring at clouds, laughing—father chasing her, happy memory, happy—_

_Daddy, where is Mama? She's not here baby girl, not here, not here—_

What do you mean you didn't make the team? Every man in this family has played football, what is wrong with you? Something's wrong, broken, you need to be better, be more, not enough right now, not enough—

Don't join the PPDC, don't do it, it won't make him proud, you'll die, my only son, you'll die—

No support—

_No choice—would have been in the PPDC even if father wasn't. Always wanted to help. Fear and anger. Wants to help. Wants to fight. _

_Metal and oil and blood and fire-pours herself into the jaegers she fixes, loves the jaegers she fixes._

_She understands machines better than people, than herself. She doesn't make friends easy. Likes to be alone to work with metal. Her hands known metal and wires. Made friends with him easily. Raleigh. Raleigh. Raleigh. _

The pilot training is hard, brutal, he's not sure if he can make it. She's there, helping him stand, helping him fight on. They can move together, drift together, she's bright and strong and she will get him through this. They will be good together.

He will balance her.

_He can balance me. Calm and logical. _

_The pain drives her. Pushes her—makes her want more, need more. Needs to be a pilot. She's young and staring up at the stars, wants to fly a spaceship. She's older and looking up at a jaeger. Needs to be a pilot. _

_Sparing with Raleigh. They move fast, hard, hit to break bone, tear skin. No holding back. Laughter—they laugh when they attack. Blood on her face and hands, in her hair. She's still laughing. Nothing major. He's laughing. Sparring with each other is so different than sparring with a co-pilot._

Suits are uncomfortable, but he doesn't notice when they're fighting kaiju. Monsters. Teeth and claws and blue blood and terror.

Scared—so scared—scared. Monsters under the bed. He's hiding in the closet, swears something grabbed his ankle. Father calls him foolish—fool—weak—

He doesn't belong here.

_She belongs. She fits._

Wants to be better. Fights.

_You can't go Raleigh, don't leave—she wants to say me but doesn't, keeps it inside. Inside. Always inside. Don't leave—_

_Daddy, where's Mama? Daddy why do we have to move? It's cold here, Dad. Really cold. _

_Dad, where are you? Why aren't you here? They say you're dead. Can't be dead._

_Don't leave me Raleigh—_

_Alone._

Not alone.

Not alone.

**NEURAL HANDSHAKE ACHIEVED  
****Threshold 93—97%**


	18. Coffee

_January, 2017._

"So what do you think of our new girl?"

Elissa looked at Tendo over her mug, the light in her eyes betraying the smile currently hidden by her drink. "She's beautiful." The young technician sat forward in her chair, peering out from the LOCCENT to where the newly finished jaeger stood in her bay, light glinting mutedly off the dusty blue of her plating. "Do they know who's piloting her yet? I can't wait to see her in action."

"Word has it that the Becket Boys are at the head of the line," Tendo said after taking a sip.

The redhead laughed into her mug. "They're giving her to those two? The meatheads will crash her before they even get to a kaiju!"

Tendo chuckled. "Pixie, I don't think they'd be giving them a jaeger if they couldn't handle it. Yancy and Raleigh Becket have some of the highest scores the Academy has seen in a long time. You just want to pilot her yourself."

"Well, yeah. Of course." Elissa smiled proudly at her friend, sitting up a little straighter as she did so. Truthfully, Elissa quite liked the Becket Boys, even if she didn't know them that well. They were nice to her, actually interested in what she had to say about the jaegers, and they were fun. "I wonder what they'll name her," she said as she settled back into the chair.

"They'll probably name her after one of the jaeger-flies they attract at the bars."

Elissa snorted, coffee trying to escape out her nose. She coughed, setting her mug down as she did so she wouldn't spill it, and doubled over in her chair. The coughs turned to laughter, more at her own stupidity than what Tendo had said. Tendo rolled his chair closer to rub her back until the coughing fit stopped. When she sat up again, both the technicians fell silent as they looked out at the new jaeger; seeing one of the massive machines without battle damage was rare and tended to draw more attention to the jaeger than normal.

"She's really something," Elissa said.

* * *

_August, 2018._

"There she is—the newly blooded pilot!"

Elissa stopped walking and bowed low in the door to the LOCCENT, a bright smile on her face. There was also blue paint on her face to symbolize the blood of her first kaiju kill, probably put there either by Yancy or Raleigh; Jared, Elissa's co-pilot would have sported identical marks at some point during the celebration they'd had at the bar the pilots and Academy students frequented.

"How does it feel, little sister?"

"Like I could take over the fucking world," she said, taking her mug of coffee and dropping into the chair beside Tendo. Her face was alight, eyes sparkling and off somewhere reliving the battle. It had been her dream to pilot a jaeger for so long, and her she was, doing just that. "Man, I am really tired though."

"Well, the four of you get back from Auckland and throw a party—a second party, might I add, to celebrate the same thing."

Elissa reached over and ruffled Tendo's hair, prompting him to roll backwards, hands flung up defensively; it was a good thing he wasn't holding his coffee. "You're just mad you didn't get to come and celebrate with us."

"Someone has to keep the jaegers in working order."

"Awe, you're pouting! Do you want me to go get some booze—liven our little chat up?"

"You're drunk."

She gave him another wide grin, this one forcibly lopsided. "Of course. It's more fun to celebrate drunk." Elissa pushed herself to her feet, drained the mug of coffee. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go continue celebrating," she said with a wink. "You wouldn't happen to know where Raleigh is, would you?"

"I think you mean Jared."

"…Right."

* * *

_March, 2020._

"You okay Pixie?"

"Raleigh just left."

Tendo watched Elissa sit down, her movements much slower than usual, heavier too. She accepted her coffee, the beverage in her usual PPDC mug, and wrapped her hands around the cup like she craved the warmth. There was a hollow look on her face and the edges of her eyelids were red. She'd been crying, but the tears were dry now.

Unsure of what to do or say, Tendo remained silent and directed his attention out the LOCCENT's windows, Elissa following suit a moment later. They stayed quiet and watched as the Shatterdome wound down for the night, people milling about and disappearing down the halls. It was earlier than normal for Tendo and Elissa to be meeting for their nearly-nightly chat, but he got the feeling the young woman needed to be around someone who wouldn't judge or damn her for the feelings she couldn't hide right then, like Jared probably would have. Tendo rolled his chair closer to her and put a hand gingerly on her shoulder.

Elissa looked at him and forced one corner of her mouth up in a smile. "I'll be okay Tendo, it just hurts more than I thought it would."

He rubbed her back a bit, squeezed her shoulder. "When Stalker's bay is clear, I'll let you know and you can head down there." It was all he could really offer in the way of comfort and escape.

She smiled at him again, genuine and warm, nodding slightly. "Good. That'll be… good. My harness has been rattling a bit anyways."

Tendo said nothing about the bogus excuse.

They lapsed into silence again, sipping their coffee and watching the activity in the bays below. Elissa's eyes flickered to the empty spot where Gipsy Danger had stood a few days prior and she sucked in a breath, the sound wavering under the weight of her emotion as she exhaled. After a while, she extended her empty mug towards Tendo.

"Can I have some more coffee please?"

* * *

_October, 2024. _

"Shouldn't you be resting?"

Elissa glared at Tendo as viciously as she ever had as she hobbled over to her chair and sunk gratefully into it, propping her crutches against the console in front of her. "Just give me my coffee. I am fucking sick of sitting in bed all God damn day watching television or reading—I want to be working. I want to help get the Shatterdome closed down and moved and I sure as shit want to be overseeing the relocation of Gipsy and Stalker. I do not want to be resting."

Tendo handed Elissa her mug of coffee and then raised his hands in surrender. "Sorry, sorry. I'll see what I can swing, but I don't think the doctors are going to let you on the boat with the jaegers. They're going to want you on the plane, so you can get to Hong Kong quickly."

"They can kiss my ass."

"Elissa, your leg is broken."

"So? I should just stop trying to do my job? I can still be of use and no one is letting me do anything! They're just telling me to rest and I sit there and rest and I think about Jared dying and Stalker blowing up and—"

She groaned and dropped her head into her hands, wincing at the strain it put on the formally dislocated shoulder. She was bruised and battered both inside and out, driven by a need to distract herself, to feel useful, and she wanted to be where she felt the most comfortable, the most at home. Tendo sighed heavily, part of him regretting what he was about to say, about to do, but most of him just glad he could help his friend, the woman who might as well have been his little sister.

"I'll make sure you're on that bot, if you want."

Elissa nodded, sipped at her coffee. There was an odd expression of determination on her face, her jaw set as she swallowed. If he hadn't already known it, that expression would have told Tendo how much she wanted it, needed it.

"I need to be with the jaegers."

* * *

_January, 2025._

"Elissa—"

It wasn't nighttime and Elissa didn't ask for coffee when she entered the LOCCENT, moving fast, like she thought her legs might give out. She just dropped into the empty chair beside Tendo and braced her elbows on her knees, head hanging down. Tendo rolled his chair over and put his hand on her back as she sucked in deep breaths.

He didn't have to ask what was wrong—part of him had been expecting a visit soon, although he was surprised it had taken so long. Raleigh had arrived the night before and, as far as Tendo knew, Elissa hadn't been aware of the younger Becket's return to the PPDC; he would have told her, but between getting the jaegers in their bays, getting Gipsy Danger ready to go, and all the other work required to get the Hong Kong Shatterdome up and running, there hadn't really been time.

Without prompting, one of the LOCCENT techs brought Elissa a cup of coffee in her mug; her visits were regular enough that most of the staff knew what she took in her coffee and knew she usually needed one when she came hustling in.

Elissa sat up, inhaled, and smiled at the tech, nodding once. "That hit me like an angry kaiju," she said before taking a sip.

Tendo laughed. "Sorry. Giving you a heads up kind of slipped my mind."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh I'm sure."

"Are you going to be all right?"

Elissa nodded and took a long pull from the coffee mug. "I will be. I think. Eventually. I need to talk to him. We needed to talk. I don't know." She looked at Tendo, hazel eyes wide. On the edge of panic.

"Elissa?"

"I need to get back to work."


	19. Aftermath

After having being kicked out of the infirmary several times and asked, not-so-politely to come back only when she was told she was allowed, Elissa was getting fed up. The doctors had released Mako after only a few hours, but Raleigh was still inside and they wouldn't even tell Elissa when they were letting him out. Mako had offered her assistance in getting Elissa into the infirmary and the women were currently standing down the hall, waiting for their moment.

"I see two doctors and one nurse," Mako said, peering into the large room. "I should be able to keep them distracted."

Elissa smiled up at Mako, internally marveling once more at how much their relationship had changed. Even a month ago, Mako would never have helped Elissa like she was now. "Thanks Mako."

She nodded, once, returning the smile. Elissa watched the younger woman enter the infirmary before moving down the hall to stand at the doorway, listening and doing her best to watch without being seen. After a few seconds, Mako had the doctors and nurses engaged in a conversation—Elissa wasn't close enough to hear about what—and they were all facing away from the door. Elissa slipped inside and silently made her way to the door on the other side of the room, leading to where the beds were kept.

Raleigh was in the bed farthest from the door, sitting up and watching television, shifting a bit like he was restless. He caught Elissa's eyes as soon as she entered the room and she gave him a wide grin, eyes lighting up.

"How did you get back in here?" he asked, moving over so she could climb onto the bed beside him.

"Sneakily and with Mako's help." She snuggled under his arm, wrapped her arms around him.

"You've got her breaking the rules now? You're a terrible influence."

"I know." Elissa lifted her head, smiling smugly.

Raleigh returned the smile and she pushed herself up so she could kiss him on the mouth, somewhat tentatively. That facet of their relationship was still new, still kind of scary in all the best ways, but when Raleigh kissed her back, Elissa sort of sunk into it, most of the tentative thoughts vanishing. When they did break apart a second later, they were breathing heavier and Elissa was blushing. She drew her bottom lip between her teeth and pressed her face into Raleigh's shoulder, nuzzling the soft fabric of his t-shirt.

"You're okay, right?" she asked. "I mean, they're not keeping you in here because something is wrong?"

"I'm fine EJ," he assured her, lips moving against the top of her head. "Just exhausted and I need to get my oxygen levels back up apparently."

"Yeah, well you finished the mission without any oxygen being fed into your suit. You were nearly dead." She lifted her head again and punched him gently in the stomach. "If you pull that almost dying shit again, I'm going to kill you, and Mako would help me."

Raleigh gave a breath of laughter before he grabbed Elissa's chin and kissed her again. "I'm not going to be able to get away with anything with the two of you around, am I?"

Elissa wrapped her arms around him tighter, returned the kiss. "Of course not." She kissed him once more, rougher, deeper, pulled herself closer—everything short of climbing into his lap. "But seriously Rals, I don't know what I'd do if you died too. I know that's cheesy and it's terrible to say, but it's true and I was so scared when Mako said you weren't breathing, when Tendo couldn't get a read on your vital signs—"

Raleigh wiped the tears bubbling over Elissa's eyelids away and pulled her into a tight hug, kissed the top of her head. "It's okay, EJ. I'm here, I'm fine, I'm not going anywhere." She reigned in her emotions quickly, like she'd always been able to do, but he could still see the fear in her eyes. She hadn't spoken to anyone about what she'd felt, that much was evident. Maybe she'd been scared he still might slip away, maybe she just didn't want to bring anyone's mood down. Raleigh hushed her and held her close. "I'm not going anywhere."

A commotion outside the room drew Elissa's attention away from whatever she was going to say—it seemed Mako could not keep the doctors and nurses occupied any longer. Elissa smiled up at Raleigh through the remnants of her emotion, and kissed him again, quickly.

"Looks like I've got to go. Come find me when they set you free."

Raleigh nodded. "Promise."

Elissa pulled herself free of Raleigh's arms and booked it to the door at the same time Mako appeared. The women turned and waved at Raleigh before they vanished into the hall, leaving annoyed doctors and an amused patient in their wake.


End file.
